Christopher & Michael
Christopher & Michael were a songwriter - Duo -1960s from Frankfurt am Main , consisting of Christopher Summer grain (1943-2010) and Michael de la Fontaine (* 1945).
history
Christopher and Michael had known each other since their school days in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen. "Long before they made their first records, they wandered through half of Europe singing. They didn’t shy away from any opportunity to get involved, be it in the midst of bums on the busiest square in Frankfurt, the Hauptwache, or in the sophisticated atmosphere of a night club for tourists in Italy." When they held their first concerts, they already had a permanent audience: "The Cantate Hall in Frankfurt was overcrowded when Christopher & Michael gave their folklore concert on March 4, 1966," writes the Offenbach-Post . "So many had turned up that well over a hundred Christopher & Michael supporters had to stand in the aisles."
In over 300 concerts in West Germany, Christopher & Michael appeared at events organized by the Easter marchers and the peace movement , for example at the Easter march on Frankfurt's Römerberg (April 1966 together with Joan Baez ), at the Burg Waldeck Festivals in 1966 and 1967 with Franz- Josef Degenhard , Walter Mossmann , Dieter Süverkrüp , Reinhard Mey , at the 13th German Evangelical Church Congress in Hanover in 1967 and at the Easter March in Ulm in 1968.
Their songs sparked controversial reactions. If the cabaret artist Hanns Dieter Hüsch described her songs as “hard on the verge of the schnulze”, Friedrich A. Wagner emphasized in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: “You have no tricks for the audience and no routine that seems smooth”. Against the attribute of the satirical magazine Pardon as "embarrassing protest singers". Horst Lippmann , the producer of their first live LP, saw the musical appearance of Christopher & Michael as an important element of honesty and a "small, modest contribution to current affairs".
Some of their concerts and appearances ended with political interventions, such as the concert on the Day of German Unity in Datteln in 1968, where Christopher & Michael were charged as ringleaders after the political monument "Schandmauer Berlin" was torn down. The case was dropped in May 1970 as a result of Willy Brandt's amnesty law for demonstration criminals.
Christopher & Michael ended their musical career as a duo in 1968. In 1981 20 titles were republished by RillenWerke and Verlag Zweiausendeins . All of Christopher & Michael's recordings have been available for download since 2013.
After separating from Christopher & Michael
In the following years, Christopher Sommerkorn produced radio and television features on German and international topics for Hessischer Rundfunk and other broadcasters. In 1977 Christopher Sommerkorn received the Development Policy Media Prize for his television feature "Tierra Nueva - Neue Erde". Sommerkorn died in Frankfurt am Main in 2010 after a long illness.
Michael de la Fontaine released two more LPs under his own name with CBS and Verlag Zweiausendeins . Concerts with a Frankfurt artist group followed. Today he lives in Berlin.
Discography
- We're finished (Eve of Destruction) - Why? , CBS 1879
- Don't Think Twice - should it never be otherwise? , CBS 2127
- Moby Dick - My Little Freedom , CBS 2291
- To the true, beautiful, good - Bi Ba Butzemann , CBS 2754
LPs
- 1966: Come here all you people - Folklore Concert Live! , CBS S 62695
- 1966: as the birds do ... , CBS S 62927
- 1967: Live Concert - Episode 2 , CBS S 63237
- 1981: Christopher & Michael - A Documentation , RillenWerke CM8101 (Sales of remaining stocks over two thousand and one .)
literature
- Detlef Siegfried: Time is on my side: Consumption and politics in the West German youth culture of the 1960s . Wallstein Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-8353-0073-3 .
- Pop instead of pap . In: Der Spiegel . No. 16 , 1966, pp. 136-142 ( online - 11 April 1966 ).
Web links
- Rillenwerke , 2nd publication, 1981
- Entry on discogs
- Digital re-publication of the complete works at Fuego
Individual evidence
- ↑ Horst Lippmann on the new LP "Come here all you people", 1966
- ↑ Offenbach-Post of March 7, 1966
- ^ Friedrich A. Wagner: Frankfurter Allgemeine, March 7, 1966.
- ↑ Detlef Siegfried: Time is on my side . Wallstein Verlag, 2006, p. 311.
- ↑ Media Prize Development Policy
- ↑ Entry on Christopher & Michael - A documentation in the DMA .